Justices Honored Scalia on the Eve of Major SCOTUS Abortion Case

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To those who knew him best, Justice Antonin Scalia was “Nino,” a man whose contrarian legal views belied his warm and friendly demeanor off the bench.

Fellow justices gathered at the Mayflower Hotel on Tuesday to remember their friend. It was a memorial made all the more poignant by the fact that they were set to take up on Wednesday one of the most important abortion cases in decades — the first high-profile issue to be heard since Scalia's death left the court with eight justices.

Scalia, the bench's ideological conservative known for his fiery comments in and out of the courtroom died last month. He was 79.

“We were from different origins heading in the same direction so we walked together and worked together for almost a quarter of a century. Along the way we developed an unbreakable bond of trust and affection,” Thomas said.

Scalia’s relationships stretched beyond Supreme Court Justices.

“We teased each other about our different ethnic backgrounds,” said Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals, an old friend of Scalia.

As a New Yorker Scalia thought he better understood Jewish culture, Silberman said.

Scalia’s daughters Catherine and Mary reminded those who were there how important faith was to their family.

Scalia would have wanted a Latin mass for his funeral mass, his daughter, Mary said.

“Since when do we care what dad wants? He wouldn’t want us to change the way of doing things,” she quipped.

She said the last two weeks were emotionally exhausting and spiritually renewing.

His daughter, Catherine, recalled the times he placed a dollop of shaving cream on her nose as she would say goodbye to him, or the times he would wave his hands in front of the grill on Saturdays ordering his hamburgers to be juicy.

“I’ll cherish the mental snapshots of dad on all fours chasing us through the house as tickle monster,” she said.

From weekend grilling to lunches with clerks, Thomas joked about the meals they shared.

While Justice Thomas and the Supreme Court clerks will continue the tradition of toasting “Nino” as they gather there will be “no anchovy pizza” Thomas said.